CFP: Tupac Amaru Shakur Collection Conference: “Hip Hop, Education, and Expanding the Archival Imagination”

Tupac Amaru Shakur Collection Conference: “Hip Hop, Education, and Expanding the Archival Imagination”

Submission Deadline: April 23, 2012

Meeting: September 28-29, 2012 Atlanta, GA

The Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library and the Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation (TASF) present the first annual Tupac Amaru Shakur Collection Conference: “Hip Hop, Education, and Expanding the Archival Imagination.” In the fifteen years since Shakur’s passing, the TASF has continued to cultivate the legacy and sociocultural impact of his life and works. As part of this effort, the TASF and Shakur Estate partnered with the AUC Woodruff Library to collect and curate the papers, letters, images, and other archival materials of the hip hop artist. In 2011, The Tupac Amaru Shakur Collection, housed at the Library, was opened to the public to promote scholarship and research of a multi-dimensional artist who helped define a musical genre.

To commemorate the opening of the historic collection, this two-day academic conference will convene scholars, educators, and students to present papers on themes related to the life and works of Tupac Shakur, education, and Hip Hop culture more broadly. The following are some suggested (but not required) sub-topics:

• Tupac and education, pedagogy, and/or epistemology

• Hip Hop in college curriculum

• Hip Hop Studies and authorship (i.e. who counts as an author?)

• What counts as an archive? How do we preserve Hip Hop culture?

• Hip Hop as literary genre (autobiography, drama, poetry, etc).

• Hip Hop as history

• Hip Hop and information literacy

• Scholar Advocacy for Hip Hop archives

• Archivists as partners in teaching, learning, and scholarship of Hip Hop Studies

Submission of paper abstracts should be approximately 300 words. Panel proposals (of either 3 or 4 papers per panel) should be approximately 500 words. All proposals should address the themes of this year’s conference “Hip Hop, Education, and Expanding the Archival Imagination” and include presenters’ institutional affiliations, a 50-word biography, and appropriate email address. Please e-mail all proposals to ShakurConference@auctr.edu by April 23, 2012. Accepted papers and panels will be announced by/on June 15, 2012, and the conference will take place on September 28-29, 2012 in Atlanta, Georgia.